North Carolina State University has announced a $50 million gift from the Park Foundation.

The largest gift in the university's history will be used to create an endowment for the Park Scholarship program, which provides about forty merit-based full-ride scholarships a year to students in the state and has been funded since 1996 by annual grants from the foundation. While the foundation — which was created by the late Roy H. Park ('31), a founder of Hines-Park Foods, maker of Duncan Hines cake mixes — will continue to support the scholarships with yearly grants, NCSU plans to raise another $100 million to create a self-sustaining fund within seven years.

"The earnings from the endowment will ensure, as long as there's an NC State University, that there will be a Park Scholarship program that funds scholarships to the best and brightest students," NCSU chancellor Randy Woodson, who saw the university's state budget appropriation fall 11 percent between 2008 and 2012, told the News & Observer. "This is another example that in a very difficult economy, when state funding for higher education is a challenge, that our friends and our alumni and supporters are working hard to provide the additional private resources that are needed to keep the university strong."